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Caroline had two guys fighting over her outside the club, and I think Tris must have been with Nick at that point, because I was all alone with Tal with nothing else to do It was soon after our fifth and supposedly final breakup, and all I wanted froet down to business Tal generally preferred to read the Forhile whacking off in his dorm room instead of have sex with me, so it must have been a dream come true for hi the work for hi in return He was satisfied to let this happen and not speak to me or touch me back

I was dead inside then, my hand cramped from the motion Tal didn’t protest when I left the hallway to step into Lou’s office He knehere I was going He liked to be kept waiting for his release I found the Jergens in Lou’s office I had intended to finish what I started, but stepping out of that ht, I can be up on h horse because I don’t drink or ss, but what does that allto with Tal? He’s kind of a creep; he doesn’t even like id or that we just had no chemistry?

I placed the Jergens bottle back on the desk and snuck out the rear office door to the alley to release ht She talks a great gaet to the field, you realize it’s fking empty Maybe I shouldn’t be so ht I did last leave him with blue balls

I a out of this cab to ask Tal the question—Why did you come back to Manhattan?— to run through my time and money while I sit in this backseat Why does anyone co

Whatever Tal came back here for, I’m sure he didn’t come back here for me But if he did, he’s even stupider than me How is it that two people with near-perfect SAT scores could have so little intelligence when it comes to each other?

Patsy’s finished falling to pieces, and now it’s Merle Haggard’s turn to tauntYou,” a favorite of Dad’s, where cynical, heartsick Merle croons about alanting but never having his love, and about how hard it will be to face toain Doomed

If I could have stayed in that closet with Nick, I , tried out new moves, ones Tal never inspired in ht Up/Down or In/Out If Nick had inative than I ever ith Tal, stroking instead of pulling, kneading and threading, groping along with grazing, two hands instead of one, the soft scratch of fingernails included Maybe I could inspire Nick to be a little iinative with me, too When Tris broke up with him, she said she knew she’d broken his heart, but she’d done him a favor, too She’d sent him back out into the world with skills the women of his future could thank Tris for, because he certainly didn’t have thee

To Merle’s bittersweet song I shouldn’t, but I do I still want Nick

I should have trusted him

A gush of tears streaht sprinkle Patsy’s song inspired

Fuck him Fuck me

Happy endings don’t happen Merle Haggard knows it, and now I know it

Okay, I know one thing I want, so that I can have I want to conclusively end the Tal regression spiral So maybe I lost out on Nick But at least now I know There are Nicks out there

I also really want sohts back on?” I ask the driver I direct hie that’s the one place Tris, Caroline, and I ever agreed on Since we first started co into the city on our own to hear music—as we’ve successively stretched parental boundaries until the restrictions and curfews have not only been lifted but banished, because we’re big girls noe ure it all out, eventually—the three of us sohts out, at least those that don’t end in fights or hooking up or passing out, at the restaurant with the great borscht and the clean bathrooether again, or if that era is over, like mine and Tal’s, and Nick and Tris’s

“Good choice,” the driver tellsmotions from the

I consider taking a catnap for the short drive over to the East Village butNick’s—I mean my—jacket I reach into the chest pocket to pull out a crumpled ten-dollar bill and a small, flip-up cell phone that has a photo-booth sticker of Tris stuck on it I wouldn’t have figured Nick to be the cell phone type, but then I reave him the phone at Christmas When she wants to keep tabs on a boy, when she’s in that mode with him, she means it I remove the Tris photo sticker from the phone and place it on the city map beneath the taxi’s back plastic divider, above the E appears to be giving Tris the finger

I don’t know if I should answer Nick’s phone The na is “tHom”